Phishing attacks bounce back after pandemic slowdown
After a tailing off during the pandemic, phishing is back, with more attacks spotted in the second quarter of this year than for the whole of 2021.
The latest phishing and malware report from Vade also shows that malware emails decreased 48 percent month-on-month -- down from 32.9 million in March to 17 million in April -- but rebounded 31 percent May, with 22.4 million malware-weaponized emails detected. June saw even higher malware volumes (28.9 million), a 29 percent increase from the previous month.
Two thirds of companies think they may have been targets of a nation-state cyberattack
New research from Venafi into the rise of nation-state cyberattacks and their links to geopolitics has revealed that two-thirds (64 percent) of security decision-makers suspect that their organization has been directly targeted or impacted by a nation state attack.
In addition, 77 percent believe we're in a perpetual state of cyberwar, while 66 percent of companies say they have changed their security strategy as a direct response to the war in Ukraine.
Was your Facebook feed flooded with celebrity spam today? Mine too
When I checked Facebook this morning, I was greeted by loads of posts to WandaVision star Elizabeth Olsen. I don’t follow Elizabeth Olsen on Facebook and, for the most part, I have no interest in what other people are saying to her on the social network (I expect she is similarly disinterested in the messages she gets via the platform, if the sample I saw is anything to go by).
I knew I hadn’t been hacked, but it was still a very weird sight. I wasn’t alone here, as my colleague Sofia reported the same issue. It turns out, this was a problem affecting a huge number of users which saw celebrity fan pages and groups being boosted to the top of Home feeds around the world.
Healthcare attackers switch to smaller targets
While large healthcare providers have lots of juicy data to tempt cybercriminals, they are also likely to have strong defenses.
It's not too surprising then that a new report from managed detection and response provider Critical Insight shows that in the first half of this year attackers have shifted their attentions to smaller hospital systems and specialty clinics that lack the same level of security preparedness, staff size, or budget.
Plex suffers data breach; third-party gains access to emails, usernames and more
Plex has emailed its users to warn about a security indecent it has become aware of. While the subject line of the email refers to a "potential data breach", the body goes on to talk about suspicious activity and a third-party gaining access to part of a database.
The company says that the exposed data included emails, usernames and encrypted passwords. Although all passwords were secured and hashed, all Plex users are required to change their security credentials out of an "abundance of caution".
Microsoft is preparing to release Windows 11 2022 Update -- the update formerly known as Windows 11 22H2
Users of Windows 11 have been eagerly awaiting the first major update to the operating system. Windows 11 22H2 has been in the works for quite a while now, and it's due for release in the coming weeks; except it's not.
Microsoft will not be releasing Windows 11 22H2, having changed its mind about what the update will be called. Instead, it is Windows 11 2022 Update that will be pushed out to users as soon as next month.
Security drives DevOps platform adoption
Nearly three-quarters of respondents to a new survey have adopted -- or plan to adopt within a year -- a DevOps platform in order to meet rising industry expectations around security, compliance, toolchain consolidation, and faster software delivery.
The study from GitLab shows security has overtaken even cloud computing as the number one investment area across DevOps teams at global organizations.
Consumers absorb cybersecurity tips from popular culture
According to a new study 59 percent US and UK consumers are now more cautious about trusting others online thanks to having watched fraud documentaries.
The report from Onfido looks at the impact of popular shows like Inventing Anna and The Tinder Swindler and finds that 67 percent of consumers admit they have changed their outlook on fraud.
Taking the risk-based approach to vulnerability patching
As one of the most effective ways to prevent attacks on IT assets, it is universally acknowledged and known that patching vulnerabilities is a critical process. But as the volume of vulnerabilities discovered in the tools we use continues to proliferate -- and the speed at which they are being weaponized increases -- patching is becoming a complex and difficult task for security teams. During the 2021 calendar year alone, more than 20,000 individual vulnerabilities were discovered and announced, and by May 2022, more than 10,000 issues had been released. The number of vulnerabilities being discovered and disclosed is not slowing down, it is accelerating.
While the security community’s ability and attention towards discovering vulnerabilities has matured, the scale of these issues has - in tandem - become overwhelming. So what can organizations do to stay afloat in today’s "sink-or-swim" threat landscape?
KB5015878 update broke audio in Windows but Microsoft has a fix... of sorts
One of the most recent updates released by Microsoft that has had something of an unwanted payload is the KB5015878 update for Windows 10. Many people installing the update found that it broke audio on their systems.
Microsoft has not only acknowledged the problem, it has also issued a fix. The company is using a once-rare-but-becoming-increasingly-common Known Issue Rollback (KIR) to recall the update. Sadly, it will be of no use to people who are experiencing audio problems!
Microsoft is displaying ads in yet another of its apps; Windows-maker gets sneaky in mobile Outlook
There's no such thing as a free lunch, and there's no such thing as free software (well... very, very rarely). If you don't pay a monetary price for software, you're almost certainly going to pay for it with your privacy, or by seeing ads.
This is something that users of Microsoft's software have had little choice but to become increasingly familiar with -- even in the case of paid-for software. The latest of the company's apps to fall victim to the advertising plague is Outlook Mobile. Users are particularly annoyed because the ads are difficult to distinguish from emails.
Steve Jobs' Apple-1 Computer prototype sells at auction for $677,196
Apple famously began life in Steve Jobs' parents' home in Los Altos, California, firstly in his bedroom, before relocating to the garage.
For obvious reasons, items from the early days of what was to become to a tech behemoth are hugely interesting to collectors and a rare Apple-1 prototype, has just sold for eye-watering figure at auction.
Disaster recovery planning: A successful framework for strategy and execution
The rise in cyber incidents is set to continue on its meteoric trajectory over the next decade. Ransomware attacks on a business, consumer, or a device are anticipated to take place every two seconds by 2031 -- a worrying escalation from every 11 seconds in 2021. And by 2025, damages are projected to reach a staggering $15 trillion annually, up from $3 trillion in 2015, according to Cybersecurity Ventures.
At the same time, users demand better performance and user experience year-after-year, and the subsequently increased threat landscape poses real challenges in connectivity and data security. 'Insider threat' also poses a considerable risk, with 80 percent of breaches involving privileged credentials misuse or abuse and malicious insider activity from recent employees.
Apple will provide you with everything you need to repair your own MacBook Pro or MacBook Air
Earlier in the year, Apple launched its self repair program, giving iPhone users the option of fixing their own phones. As well as providing instruction manuals and selling the parts, tool rental is also part of the program.
Now Apple has announced that it is expanding the Self Service Repair to include MacBook Air and MacBook Pro notebooks -- provided they are fitted with the M1 family of chips, that is. The company says that the program will expand to include additional Mac models soon, and that the iPhone self-repair service will expand out of the US to Europe and beyond.
IT leaders look to switch from legacy systems to data warehouses
According to a new study more than 59 percent of data and technology leaders plan to switch their data warehousing solutions and 46 percent say a legacy system is motivating them to do so.
The research carried out by Propeller Insights for Ocient surveyed 500 people who are managing active data workloads of 150 terabytes or more. It finds 97 percent of respondents say the volume of data managed by their organization is set to grow fast or very fast over the next one to five years.
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